ST. LOUIS 鈥 In his opening counter move, 17-year-old Cameron Siegal landed a hook against his opponent.
Bennett Jacobstein, 50 years Siegal鈥檚 senior, had kicked off their Scrabble match Friday afternoon by placing 鈥渃hin鈥 across the center starred square. Siegal responded with 鈥渂lown,鈥 lining up the O so that 鈥渃hin鈥 morphed into a new word, 鈥渃hino鈥 鈥 a maneuver called a hook in Scrabble lingo. It earned Siegal 22 points.
The two Scrabblers are among 160 people 鈥 teenagers to octogenarians from across the United States and as far away as India and Nigeria 鈥 convening at the 果酱视频 Union Station Hotel through Wednesday to compete in the 13th annual . It鈥檚 the first time the city has hosted the event.
Scrabble, which dates to the 1930s, has been a mainstay of family game nights for decades. But 鈥 as with cornhole, jigsaw puzzles and Pok茅mon 鈥 what was once a strictly recreational pursuit has developed a small-but-loyal following of strategic gamers willing to log hours of weekly study and venture across the country for a shot at beating the best.
People are also reading…
Samuel Heiman, 63, from Chesterfield, looks over his tiles as he prepares to put down a word on the Scrabble board Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, at Union Station in 果酱视频.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole other way to think about the game,鈥 said Deborah Komatsu of Los Angeles, one of the Word Cup organizers. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an ocean more to love about it.鈥
Like in chess, time is limited; a player is penalized for every minute over the 25 allotted to them. Like in football, the end of the game moves more slowly than the beginning. And like in spelling bees, you do not have to understand what a word means for it to count.
鈥淢ore than half the words I play, I don鈥檛 know the definition for,鈥 said Jackson Smylie of Montreal, the reigning champion of the Word Cup.
鈥淛ee鈥 qualifies, and it fits in a tight space with high point potential. So does 鈥渮oeae,鈥 which eats up an overload of vowels. 鈥淨anats鈥 vanquishes a Q when no U is around.
Smylie can define his favorite showstopper, 鈥渟ubshrub.鈥 It鈥檚 a small bush. He just likes how it looks and sounds.
Though he鈥檚 held the Word Cup title for three years running, he has never been bothered by paparazzi, he jokes.
鈥淚鈥檓 definitely not a celebrity,鈥 he said.
Smylie, 27, is competing in the highest of the four Word Cup divisions, based on player ratings. Everyone plays 31 matches; the win-loss record determines the division champs, who will each get a slice of the $32,000 prize pot.
Offense and defense
Long before she became a Scrabbler, Randi Goldberg of the Central West End used to get lost in the dictionary.
Jonathan Lindh, left, from Chicago, and Annette Obrestad, from Las Vegas, review the words they played in a completed game during the early bird rounds of the 2025 Word Cup competitive Scrabble tournament Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, at Union Station in 果酱视频.
鈥淎s a kid, I鈥檇 look up a word and get distracted by the other words,鈥 said Goldberg, 41. She鈥檇 read her Merriam-Webster for hours 鈥 a hobby that has paid off.
The building blocks of Scrabble, she said, are the two- and three-letter terms that are critical to 鈥減arallel play.鈥
Instead of crisscrossing, the words run alongside each other, forming extra words with the overlapping letters. 鈥淔in,鈥 when lined up one square to the left underneath 鈥減at,鈥 for example, also gets points for the vertical add-ons 鈥減i鈥 and 鈥渁n.鈥
In Scrabble, a seven-letter word is a dazzler. Known as a bingo, the rack-emptying move yields 50 bonus points on top of whatever the word earns on its own.
鈥淚t makes people laugh鈥 says Henry Moses, from San Antonio, TX, about his T-shirt as he poses for a protrait during the early bird rounds of the Word Cup 2025 competitive Scrabble tournament at Union Station in 果酱视频 on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.
As she got more serious, Goldberg discovered that competitive play requires defense as well as offense. She tries to surmise what鈥檚 on her rival鈥檚 rack and anticipate their next step.
Goldberg considers a score in the mid-400s to be 鈥渄ecent,鈥 but she鈥檚 happy 鈥渁s long as it鈥檚 one point ahead of my opponent.鈥
Often, that鈥檚 her husband and built-in study buddy, Chris Lipe, whom she met at a tournament almost a decade ago.
When he immersed himself in Scrabble during college, Lipe, 44, toted homemade flashcards in his pockets everywhere he went. Now there are apps and livestreamed games that allow enthusiasts to analyze strategies and identify missed opportunities.
鈥淚t鈥檚 puzzle-solving,鈥 said Lipe. 鈥淚 love the beautiful, absurd combination of words.鈥
Landing a 鈥榯riple-triple鈥
Scrabble is also a mathematical contest, and after a bout, players often take a few minutes to stare at the board, marveling over the numeric feats.
On Friday, Roy Kamen of Florida celebrated a rare 鈥渢riple-triple.鈥 The word 鈥渋nternal鈥 鈥 eight points on its face value 鈥 yielded 131 for Kamen, thanks in part to a placement that stretched across two triple-word bonus squares.
Mike Johnson, from Decorah, Iowa, pulls lettered tiles out of a bag during the early bird rounds of the Word Cup 2025 competitive Scrabble tournament at Union Station in 果酱视频 on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.
Kamen, 70, arrived in 果酱视频 a day ahead of the formal tournament to participate in the Word Cup鈥檚 optional Early Bird scrimmages.
The results don鈥檛 factor into the tournament鈥檚 outcome, but that fact did nothing to lower the afternoon鈥檚 intensity.
Siegal and Jacobstein, locked into an unusually close showdown, sat at their table in near silence. Their bag of purple tiles had been emptied, and Jacobstein was up 358 to 346.
The brim of Siegal鈥檚 baseball cap hid his face as his timer ticked below the one-minute mark. He scribbled notes on a clipboard. Finally, he committed: His final word would be 鈥渟eeds.鈥
Not too flashy, but touching two other words, it was worth 24 points, enough to push the teenager into the lead.
Jacobstein rearranged the tiles on his rack. He stared at the board, shook his head and breathed out a sigh.
All he had left, 鈥渧oe,鈥 wouldn鈥檛 be enough to recover. Siegal won.
鈥淚鈥檓 the past,鈥 said Jacobstein, who has been competing for more than three decades. 鈥淗e鈥檚 the future.鈥
Cameron Siegal, 17, left, from Westchester, N.Y., and Samuel Heiman, 63, from Chesterfield, play in the early bird rounds of the 2025 Word Cup competitive Scrabble tournament Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, at Union Station in 果酱视频.
